Lay People Deny Morality’s Objectivity across Cultures (to somewhat Different Extents and in somewhat Different Ways)

Philosophers have long assumed that lay people believe morality to be objective. Recent psychological research casts doubt on this assumption. However, this research has so far mostly been limited to the United States. Do people from other cultures dominantly reject objectivism as well? The present study investigates lay people’s abstract beliefs about moral objectivity in Brazil, Germany, Indonesia, Japan and the United States. Our study suggests that results vary considerably with metaethical codings; that on most codings people in our target countries indeed dominantly reject morality’s objectivity; that this denial takes somewhat different forms and appears to be somewhat more common in Japan and somewhat less common in Brazil; that a substantial proportion of folk metaethical beliefs do not fit traditional philosophical taxonomies; and that lay people’s moral objectivity beliefs are weakly predicted by their religiosity and level of political conservatism.